The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

have honestly written the truth about myself, from firstto last. For the future I must, for safety's sake, live under some othername. I should like to go back to my name when I was a happy girl athome. But Van Brandt knows it; and, besides, I have (no matter howinnocently) disgraced it. Good-by again, sir; and thank you again."

  So the letter concluded.

  I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and thoroughlyunreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had done, she had donewrong. It was wrong of her, in the first place, to have married at all.It was wrong of her to contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, evenif his lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her toreturn my letter of introduction, after I had given myself the troubleof altering it to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to takean absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration,and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandthimself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her to sign herChristian name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with awoman, and not knowing by what fond name to identify her in my thoughts!"M. Van Brandt!" I might call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel,Magdalen, Mary--no, not Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, butI owed some respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early dayswere still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me asthis woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to thinkeven of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of her at all?Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of tracing her in herletter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace a woman who had gone Iknew not whither, and who herself informed me that she meant to passunder an assumed name. Had I lost all pride, all self-respect? In theflower of my age, with a handsome fortune, with the world before me,full of interesting female faces and charming female figures, whatcourse did it become me to take? To go back to my country-house, andmope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or tosend for a courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly amongforeign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at thatmoment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my imagination.I first astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all furtherinquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped; and then Iopened my writing desk and wrote to tell my mother frankly and fully ofmy new plans.

  The answer arrived by return of post.

  To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with onlyformally approving of my new resolution. With an energy which I hadnot ventured to expect from her, she had made all her arrangements forleaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to join me as my travelingcompanion. "You shall not go away alone, George," she wrote, "while Ihave strength and spirits to keep you company."

  In three days from the time when I read those words our preparationswere completed, and we were on our way to the Continent.

  CHAPTER XIII. NOT CURED YET.

  WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from Englandnearly two years.

  Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the image ofMrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my mind?

  No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of DameDermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in the time tocome. For the first two or three months of our travels I was hauntedby dreams of the woman who had so resolutely left me. Seeing her in mysleep, always graceful, always charming, always modestly tender towardme, I waited in the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of herin my waking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a given placeand time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no apparition showeditself. The dreams themselves grew less frequent and less vivid and thenceased altogether. Was this a sign that the days of her adversitywere at an end? Having no further need of help, had she no furtherremembrance of the man who had tried to help her? Were we never to meetagain?

  I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don't forgether now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say what I might.

  I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries couldshow me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society that Paris,Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours in the companyof the most accomplished and most beautiful women whom Europe couldproduce--and still that solitary figure at Saint Anthony's Well, thosegrand gray eyes that had rested on me so sadly at parting, held theirplace in my memory, stamped their image on my heart.

  Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it, I stilllonged for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of my mind frommy mother. But her loving eyes discovered the secret: she saw that Isuffered, and suffered with me. More than once she said: "George, thegood end is not to be gained by traveling; let us go home." More thanonce I answered, with the bitter and obstinate resolution of despair:"No. Let us try more new people and more new scenes." It was only whenI found her health and strength beginning to fail under the stress ofcontinual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless searchafter oblivion, and to turn homeward at last.

  I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London beforeshe returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in Perthshire.It is needless to say that I remained in town with her. My mother nowrepresented the one interest that held me nobly and endearingly to life.Politics, literature, agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in myposition--had none of them the slightest attraction for me.

  We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of the season."Among the operatic attractions of that year--I am writing of the dayswhen the ballet was still a popular form of public entertainment--therewas a certain dancer whose grace and beauty were the objects ofuniversal admiration. I was asked if I had seen her, wherever I went,until my social position, as the one man who was indifferent to thereigning goddess of the stage, became quite unendurable. On the nextoccasion when I was invited to take a seat in a friend's box, I acceptedthe proposal; and (far from willingly) I went the way of the world--inother words, I went to the opera.

  The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to thetheater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused themselveswith looking for familiar faces in the boxes and stalls. I took a chairin a corner and waited, with my mind far away from the theater, from thedancing that was to come. The lady who sat nearest to me (like ladiesin general) disliked the neighborhood of a silent man. She determined tomake me talk to her.

  "Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theateranywhere so full as this theater is to-night?"

  She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front of thebox to look at the audience.

  It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space (asI gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of thebuilding) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, my rangeof view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that distance, theexcellent glass which had been put into my hands brought the faces ofthe audience close to me. I looked first at the persons who occupiedthe front row of seats in the gallery stalls.

  Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the seats,I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle.

  My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. Therewas no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces near it. I haddiscovered Mrs. Van Brandt!

  She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stallimmediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from time totime. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with something of asad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or might not, find thatout. Under any circumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt.

  The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could to myfriends, and instantly left the box.

  It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the gallery. Mymoney was refused. There was not even standing room left in that part ofthe theater.


  But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait for Mrs.Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was over.

  Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen sittingbehind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? While I pacedbackward and forward before the door, that one question held possessionof my mind, until the oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I wentback to my friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the managain.

  What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot nowremember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I borrowed it andkept it without scruple), I alone, of all that vast audience, turned myback on the stage, and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls.

  There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-boundby the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, onthe contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in the